August 2014 : Indian Car Sales Figures & Analysis

This is a discussion on August 2014 : Indian Car Sales Figures & Analysis within The Indian Car Scene, part of the BHP India category; Originally Posted by Dry Ice
On a serious note, agreed Captiva is a capable offering from GM. But at a ...

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Chevrolet is still burning $$$ in the Indian market. I mean, they sell 100-150 units a month of Spark in one of the biggest markets in the world for hatches! What a joke!

If they can't get their act together, why don't they just pack up? Or at least stop producing and selling (they don' sell anyway!) cars like Spark. You can't be optimistic by just praying that the Indian consumer will overnight start buying your products! You got to do take some drastic steps, especially for increasing their reliability, improving the dealership experience, especially after sales.

Maruti: Among the 15 Car manufacturing companies in India (leaving super luxury segment), Maruti has close to 50% market share, that’s the testimony, nothing else to describe its success.

Hyundai: Definitely holding onto II position for long and years to come. It has given tough fight to others including Maruti, setting the mark high with every release. It’s the company shown taste of luxury in the normal cars and pushed competition to add more value to their offerings. Certainly in the right direction though missing in few segments.

Honda: Lessons learnt and forgotten constantly. One success kicks them high and a failure brings back to reality. You can’t take Indian customer for a ride anymore as almost all car companies are in India, any mistake proves costly going forward.

Mahindra: King of SUVs and mini commercial vehicles. Need to shed weight and improve service levels. Need to bring facelifts that are noticeable and image builders.

Toyota: I always disliked Toyotas in India for the looks, they tried to sell by their popular “Toyota Quality” slogan. Ofcourse Quality matters, but then for me and many like me, look of the car is equally important and you are getting it from other manufacturers.

Tata: Bring back Sierra and Estate type of models with modern equipments, think differently rather than following the crowd with sub 4 meters crap. You have the potential and presence, you have the global brand under you, give us better products. Change the grill, logo and family looks.

Chevrolet: Offer your global models here. No point in waiting with the dated items on the shelf.

Volkswagen: Started off with promising products. How long do you think people will buy for “German Solid Build Quality” without adding value to the offerings? More models needed, and facelift of existing models is the need of the hour.

Renault: Produced a superstar Duster, its really good. Company looks like one trick wonder. Renault – Duster = Less than Fiat.

Nissan: Such a capable company globally, just sitting and doing copy paste in India. Such a waste.

Skoda: Not even trying to come out of bad image of pathetic customer care and A$$

Maruti: Among the 15 Car manufacturing companies in India (leaving super luxury segment), Maruti has close to 50% market share, that’s the testimony, nothing else to describe its success.

I would buy a Maruti for peace of mind in terms of after sales and wide network of service stations they have. No company has been able to match them. But this is a result of a presence of more than 3 decades. A persistent one i'd say. But when it comes to the core product they are selling, i am left disappointed.

I was looking out for a hatch under 6 lac OTR. I liked the swift vxi. But little research on the brakes on the VXI and LXI, the thinner window glass panes, the tiny boot, defogger only in the ZXI (forget the rear wipers), super skinny tyres, no audio are all one hell of a business strategy. The ZXI comes close to a lac more than the VXI. The SA himself admitted that the LXI and VXI had brake problems earlier and now it is all sorted out. Come on the car was selling more than 10k a month with brake problems pre 2014/2013 period. I say that the business strategy should be present, but not overshadowing the quality(brakes,glass window panes) in the products. The time will come when products should be given more importance than making money per se. Let down i am !

And a couple of years back or more ,these guys didnt even have Swift ZDI, to avoid the overshadowing of the Dzire LDI or whatever and yet they sell like never before.

Its not that we should be proud that Maruti is having 50% share. I guess they should be. You know very well what emotions we should be having for this great feat since we still keep falling for their gimmicks !

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Chevrolet is still burning $$$ in the Indian market. I mean, they sell 100-150 units a month of Spark in one of the biggest markets in the world for hatches! What a joke!

If they can't get their act together, why don't they just pack up? Or at least stop producing and selling (they don' sell anyway!) cars like Spark. You can't be optimistic by just praying that the Indian consumer will overnight start buying your products! You got to do take some drastic steps, especially for increasing their reliability, improving the dealership experience, especially after sales.

This rant is from someone who owned a Spark earlier .

+1 to that. there are a couple of car brands which seem to be going nowhere (atleast it is not visible), and chevrolet is one of them. loved the comfortable optra, and still continue to own it, but now I wouldnt touch any of their products. How I wished that they would launch the Trailblazer in India, which would have gone head to head with Fortuner and Endy. But, chevrolet is unwilling to invest in India any further (since they refuse to upgrade their Paint Shop) and will in all probability give us only the SAIC engineered products.

I would buy a Maruti for peace of mind in terms of after sales and wide network of service stations they have. No company has been able to match them. But this is a result of a presence of more than 3 decades. A persistent one i'd say. But when it comes to the core product they are selling, i am left disappointed.

Hyundai is there for close to two decades, Mahindra for more than five decades. By this logic Mahindra shall be outselling Maruti and Hyundai shall be at least 60% of Maruti; why are they not able to do that? is Mahindra even targeting to beat Maruti?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rubbertramps

I was looking out for a hatch under 6 lac OTR. I liked the swift vxi. But little research on the brakes on the VXI and LXI, the thinner window glass panes, the tiny boot, defogger only in the ZXI (forget the rear wipers), super skinny tyres, no audio are all one hell of a business strategy. The ZXI comes close to a lac more than the VXI. The SA himself admitted that the LXI and VXI had brake problems earlier and now it is all sorted out.

The brakes on LXI/VXI are not as strong as they should be but they are not dangerously insufficient. Swift is an option, if someone has bigger boot as priority, there is dezire or SX4. All the users of Swift may not be needing a larger boot.

Business Strategy it is, for there is some product at every price point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rubbertramps

You know very well what emotions we should be having for this great feat since we still keep falling for their gimmicks !

These are not gimmicks. They are responding to the mass market demand. We do not complain on why can't they produce a 500 bhp sports car or a V8 4x4 as we know there is no demand and Maruti is not capable of doing it.

Whatever they are doing, it is better than the rest and that's what matters.

+1 to that. there are a couple of car brands which seem to be going nowhere (atleast it is not visible), and chevrolet is one of them.

Hi

Its not the car due to which brand Chevrolet is not doing well but its more to do with lack of understanding Indian Car Market as I think.

First the Brand.
Chevrolet is not the best of the brand from HM. Its the Daewoo. An American company offering Korean product, strict no-no. We have better Koreans around.

Availability of spare parts in secondary market.

The second hand car market is big and it drives the primary new car market. People like to buy other brand of second hand car due to availability of spares and road-side repairs. Maruti & Hyundai have done well at it along with Indians like Tata & Mahindra as well.

Hyundai is there for close to two decades, Mahindra for more than five decades. By this logic Mahindra shall be outselling Maruti and Hyundai shall be at least 60% of Maruti; why are they not able to do that? is Mahindra even targeting to beat Maruti?

I am all praises for this feat as i already mentioned in my post ! It takes a lot of hard work for this.

Quote:

The brakes on LXI/VXI are not as strong as they should be but they are not dangerously insufficient. Swift is an option, if someone has bigger boot as priority, there is dezire or SX4. All the users of Swift may not be needing a larger boot.

Brakes are a vital part of the car. No compromises are justifiable there IMHO. You never know when an emergency situation will come be it a city or a highway drive.

Quote:

Business Strategy it is, for there is some product at every price point.

These are not gimmicks. They are responding to the mass market demand. We do not complain on why can't they produce a 500 bhp sports car or a V8 4x4 as we know there is no demand and Maruti is not capable of doing it.

Yes. I agree. It is us Indians that are to be blamed here. !

Quote:

Whatever they are doing, it is better than the rest and that's what matters.

Now that i cannot agree. There are better products out there which people are not ready to buy since they worry about spare parts availability and after sales service. It is a matter of time before some one comes and grabs that position with quality products. And cars like SX4, A-star, Kizashi, Grand Vitara are reality checks that clearly tell us that they are not doing better than the rest atleast in some cases.

Last edited by GTO : 17th September 2014 at 17:39.
Reason: Please don't highlight full post with bold font, thanks

Brakes are a vital part of the car. No compromises are justifiable there IMHO. You never know when an emergency situation will come be it a city or a highway drive..

I have been driving Swift Vxi for par 6 years/85000 KM. Believe me, I have been in all kind of situations but never faced any issue because of brakes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rubbertramps

Now that i cannot agree. There are better products out there which people are not ready to buy since they worry about spare parts availability and after sales service. It is a matter of time before some one comes and grabs that position with quality products. And cars like SX4, A-star are reality checks that clearly tell us that they are not doing better than the rest atleast in some cases.

That's the whole point. Maruti knows that there are better products with pathetic A$$ and that Maruti would be able to improve further before someone 'grabs that position'. The 'matter of time' is yet to come after two decades of competition from other manufacturers.

Cars like SX4 and A-star are reality checks and therefore there is Celerio and Ciaz to replace them

Its not the car due to which brand Chevrolet is not doing well but its more to do with lack of understanding Indian Car Market as I think.

I'm not disputing what you said but from my personal experience of owning a Spark for five years, I was pissed off when I had to spend about Rs 40000 in the last one and a half years of ownership on overhauling the clutch assembly and other repairs. Plus experiences like having to keep the car with the dealer for a week for lack of spares, unscrupulous dealers overcharging and cheating all led to an unsatisfactory experience. Made me swear never to buy a Chevy again.

Few Observations:FORD
1) The fiesta is a verified FLOP. 538 with Classic and Fiesta together is not a number Ford should be proud of

2) Figo. Where art thou? From a 65XX to 12XX. Its a big fall and it ay never recoup from here.

I am amazed with the numbers thrown out for the Fiesta. Really bad marketing and promotion. They have a good car with an attractive price in the stable, yet the numbers don't do them any justice. The perception of Ford ASC being expensive is a huge factor (which it is not really) and it is killing the brand. The spares though are costly compared to a Maruti.

Figo - I am not sure, if any market is remaining for the car. Although it is a very driver centric and great Value for Money.

If Ford can some out with (1) Clearly marketing ASC costs (2) Extended Warranty as standard on all cars and (3) Product refresh across models - we might still see some decent numbers from them. But are they listening?

I am amazed with the numbers thrown out for the Fiesta. Really bad marketing and promotion. They have a good car with an attractive price in the stable, yet the numbers don't do them any justice. The perception of Ford ASC being expensive is a huge factor (which it is not really) and it is killing the brand. The spares though are costly compared to a Maruti.

Figo - I am not sure, if any market is remaining for the car. Although it is a very driver centric and great Value for Money.

If Ford can some out with (1) Clearly marketing ASC costs (2) Extended Warranty as standard on all cars and (3) Product refresh across models - we might still see some decent numbers from them. But are they listening?

Exactly the point.

Many cases of poor marketing for the Fiesta starting with the wrong colour selection and a lack luster newspaper campaign for the Fiesta.

Add to that, only allocating limited Fiestas to the dealership.
As you also correctly said, the general perception of Ford being expensive remains.

I know this for a fact as my earlier steed was an Ikon. Post 70K kms, it was proving to be more than a white elephant to maintain.

Had to eventually sort of "distress" sell it off and settle for a subtle WR. A downgrade from a sporty sedan.

Coming back to the topic, Figo has launched a sublime and "not to my taste" kinetic blue flavoured Figo. This wont take them anywhere but just to keep the brand live in prospective buyers minds.

They have also added an extended warranty for as little as Rs. 2.2K.

However, whatever said and done, Ford is under performing in a huge way.

With no immediate launched(other than the Sedan based KA), Ford has to prioritize their marketing efforts as an Eco sport alone cannot mitigate their overheads!!

It is a very important thing for all to understand as many consider these figures as actual sales which it isn't.

Anurag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aditya

3. These manufacturer-reported sales numbers are factory dispatches to dealerships. They are NOT retail sales figures to end customers.

Since these are actually dispatches from the company to the dealership, how accurate can we be on our analysis of how the market is moving. I suggest that we also try to somehow work a formula that helps us ascertain the actual sales.